


It'll Always Be Sort Of

by yuletide_archivist



Category: Macdonald Hall - Gordon Korman
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-12-16
Updated: 2005-12-16
Packaged: 2018-01-25 07:27:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,981
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1638869
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yuletide_archivist/pseuds/yuletide_archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Boots O'Neal returns to the newly reopened Macdonald Hall to confront his past--and embark on his future.</p>
            </blockquote>





	It'll Always Be Sort Of

**Author's Note:**

> Written for kel.

 

 

 _Bruno sat down gloomily on the edge of his bed, propping his chin up with his hands. "It'll always be sort of my school," he said, his voice hoarse. (_ from  The Joke's On Us, originally published as Something Fishy at Macdonald Hall).

Taking the turn off Highway 48 was, Boots O'Neal reflected, a wretchedly nostalgia-inducing experience. This was the first time he'd made this trip alone, though he'd been driven along this road at the start of countless terms. He clenched the steering wheel with sweating hands as Macdonald Hall came into view. Slowing the car, he stared for a moment at the Headmaster's house as he drove past, then headed to the parking lot near Dormitory 3.

He sat for a moment, overwhelmed with memories. It had been years since he'd been here, and so much had changed. The school had even, for a time, been shut down, and now it had reopened under the leadership of someone new -- a stranger - someone who _wasn't the Fish_. Boots shook his head in disbelief.

And now he, Melvin O'Neal, had returned. The weekend-long "Macdonald Hall Reunion" would, he hoped, help him to make up his mind. Boots had submitted his resume to the Board of Directors, and duly been offered a position teaching English at the Hall, but all that had occurred before the new Head had been chosen and hired. Boots hadn't discussed this with anyone, but he wasn't sure he _could_ work at the Hall under some guy who wasn't the Fish. It seemed disloyal, and what was worse, it underlined how much everything had changed.

If there was one thing Boots had learned since graduation, it was that he hated change.

Change, no matter what anyone said, was bad. Change meant loss. Nothing ever changed for the better, of that he was sure. Change sucked.

And under it all, unspoken, barely acknowledged even to himself, lay the one change he had never recovered from, never adjusted to, and could never accept: he and Bruno Walton were no longer friends. Bruno had graduated from the Hall, taken off on some adventure of his own, and never gotten in touch again. As if, Boots thought bitterly, he couldn't wait to shake the dust of this place off his feet. As if he couldn't wait to shake _me_ off.

Oh, he'd tried to believe it was an oversight; he'd told himself that Bruno had just gotten caught up in something that absorbed all of his attention, but that someday he'd call. Boots had put his own emotions on hold, waiting for that call.

He'd made a few calls of his own, to the guys who had stayed in touch. Larry Wilson was working for Canada Post now, but no: he wasn't sure what had happened to Walton. Mark Davies, whose articles in the Globe and Mail Boots always read with interest, hadn't heard from Bruno either. Elmer Drimsdale, television's "Dr. Drim," had had his secretary send a note - he was too busy shooting the next season of "Science Simplified" to attend the reunion, it said, but he looked forward to seeing Boots soon.

Boots sighed heavily and climbed out of the car. Inside Dormitory 3, a reception desk had been set up; the young woman who checked Boots' invitation against the printout of attendees informed him cheerily, with no sense of the effect of her words, that he'd been assigned to room 306. Boots' spirits sank even lower: now the fates were conspiring against him, mocking his friendless state. That cheerless reflection wasn't enough, though, to keep a small spark of hope from leaping in his chest when he pushed open the door. The spark sputtered and died when he saw that the room was empty, and only one bed was made up. What did you expect? Boots scoffed silently. That he'd be waiting here for you?

He left room 306 as quickly as possible, trudging across to the rec centre to see who else had turned up for the reunion. "And there's O'Neal now," Mark said, waving him over to a small group that had claimed the couches nearest the fireplace. Boots tried his best to cheer up, throwing himself into the catching-up conversation. Chris Talbot, he learned, had recently had his first exhibit at the AGO. Myron Blankenship, to everyone's amazement, grew reticent and murmured that he'd rather not discuss his own career.

Boots bit his tongue to keep from asking if anyone knew the whereabouts of the one person who mattered most. Just the effort of not mentioning Bruno's name made his heart pound painfully in his chest. Desperate to change the subject before anyone else asked about his former roommate, he blurted, "So what about the new Headmaster? Has anyone heard who he is?"

"I heard," chimed in Myron, "that they gave the job to some hotshot form the States." Larry nodded.

"An American?" Boots frowned, puzzled. "That seems odd. Couldn't they find a qualified candidate from Canada? This is Macdonald Hall, after all."

"Yeah," growled Wilbur Hackenschleimer. "Why do we need an American? No offence meant," he added as Dave Jackson entered the room.

"None taken," Dave assured him cheerfully. "What are you guys talking about?"

"The new Headmaster," explained Larry Wilson. "Rumour has it he's some kind of American whiz kid. Kind of takes you back, doesn't it?" he said, thinking fondly of their campaign against Mr. Wizzle. "The whole 'bring in a new guy to modernize the Hall' thing, I mean."

Boots looked, if anything, more miserable. "Yeah," he pointed out, "but back in the Wizzle era, we had the Fish on our side." And Bruno, he thought sadly, but kept that particular sorrow to himself. "Now the alleged whiz kid _is_ the Headmaster. There's no higher court of appeal."

"You mean you don't know?" Dave said incredulously.

"Know what?" Boots asked.

Dave looked gleeful. "Uh, nothing," he said, grinning.

Boots narrowed his eyes in suspicion. "It didn't sound like nothing," he insisted.

"It's just that I've heard a lot about the new Headmaster," Dave explained, still looking more pleased than that warranted. "He didn't actually grow up in the States, for one thing. I'm pretty sure he has duel citizenship. He did one of his degrees Stateside, and then picked up a load of money doing motivational speaking on the political circuit. Now he's come home and talked the board of directors into making him the new Head."

"He sounds like a sleezeball," said Wilbur.

"He sounds like a phoney," Boots agreed grimly, "not like the kind of steady, loyal Headmaster Macdonald Hall deserves. I think I already don't like him."

"Oh, no," Dave assured him. "You'll love him, Boots. Just wait." In fact, Dave thought, smirking slightly, I suspect you already do.

Over the next twenty-four hours, the new Headmaster went from being a completely unknown entity to being an omnipresent source of rumour. The new Headmaster, so it was said, had hit up swanky alumnus George Wexford-Smyth III and received a huge donation to the school. The new Head had, somehow, convinced Dr. Drim himself to sign on to deliver a series of guest lectures to the students. The new Head was a personal friend of whomever had bought, and was planning to reopen, Miss Scrimmage's Finishing School for Young Ladies.

"Am I the only one who isn't a fan of the new Headmaster?" Boots asked bitterly.

"Yes," said Pete Anderson. "Hey, did you hear he persuaded the AGO to lend us some of Chris Talbot's paintings for an exhibition?"

After an uncomfortable second night spent tossing and turning in the mockingly-empty room 306, Boots rose on the last day of the reunion feeling slightly relieved to be saying goodbye to the guys. He still liked them all, and it had been good to see them again, but the strain of avoiding the topic of Bruno Walton was exhausting him, and he was shamefully aware that if anyone else had brought it up, he might have made a fool of himself in front of everyone. Several times over the weekend he'd come close to crying, especially when Dave Jackson, hugging him goodbye the night before, had inexplicably chosen to whisper, "Hang in there, Boots. Everything will work out." He had no idea how Dave had known he needed to hear that, and no way of knowing how much Dave had already guessed, but the unexpected kindness had brought tears to his eyes.

Now, waving goodbye to the cars as the others pulled away, Boots assured himself that the worst was over. All he had left to get through was an interview with the still-unseen Headmaster, and then he could retreat to his Toronto apartment, lick his wounds, and reflect on whether the honour of teaching at Macdonald Hall would be worth the heartache of daily reminders of how much he had lost.

He approached the Headmaster's house on foot, noticing that now there was a red sports car parked in the driveway. It was a smooth, sleek, egotistical little car that somehow made Boots both indignant and mildly envious, so that he was scowling when an immaculately dressed young woman answered the door. "I'm looking for the Headmaster," he said, struggling to regain his usual polite tone.

"Right this way. He's expecting you," she said, and led him inside to a gleaming oak door. Boots raised his hand to knock, but the girl shook her head. "He said to tell you to just walk in," she said firmly. Boots tapped on the door anyway before letting himself inside.

"Shut the door," growled a voice from the leather chair on the opposite side of the desk. The chair was turned away, so that its occupant was hidden, but Boots' heart throbbed helplessly as he shut the door in a daze. That voice...nothing could disguise that voice from him.

"Bruno!" he cried.

Bruno Walton spun the chair around, grinning in triumph, and then strode across the room to embrace him, and now Boots _was_ crying, soaking the shoulder of his former roommate's sweater. Finally he drew a gasping, shaky breath and stepped back. "You idiot," Boots said accusingly. "Why didn't you write? Or call? Or something?"

For once in his life Bruno looked abashed. "I couldn't," he said finally, shrugging helplessly. "When I started college it took me a while to realize what was wrong. I couldn't just pick up the phone and tell you the truth. The longer I waited, the more impossible it got to tell you." A small hint of his usual grin crept back. "Finally I decided it needed a really _spectacular_ gesture, so you'd be so dazzled by my success and my cunning plans for the future that I'd find it easy to tell you."

"Tell me what?" Boots asked suspiciously, reluctant to be won over.

Bruno stepped forward, wrapped both arms around Boots' shoulders, and pulled him in close again. "I love you, Boots O'Neal," he said, his voice very nearly calm even though Boots could hear - and feel - his heart pounding.

Afterwards, while Bruno was showing him around the house which "really is too big for one person, you know," Boots felt sufficiently certain that Bruno really, truly meant it to venture a joke. "You seem to have our whole future planned," he mused, "but I bet there's one question even the great Bruno Walton can't answer. What on earth do you think Myron Blankenship does for a living, and where do you suppose he learned to keep a secret?"

Bruno looked smug. "You underestimate me, O'Neal," he sighed. "Not only do I know, but I know the answer to both questions is the same." Boots raised one eyebrow, and Bruno elaborated. "He works for CSIS." And while Boots was still propped against the wall struggling to stop laughing, Bruno leaned in close and kissed him.

 


End file.
